Former Bulls center Boerwinkle dies

Summary of 2 articles · Updated Mar 28, 2013

Tom Boerwinkle passed away on Wednesday. Tom Boerwinkle, the former Chicago Bulls center who had a franchise-record 37 rebounds in a 1970 game against the Phoenix Suns, has died. He was 67. Though the greatest rebounder of all time, Dennis Rodman, played … (more)for the Bulls between 1995 and 1998, Boerwinkle still holds the team record for most boards collected in a game while working in a Bulls uniform. Boerwinkle, from Independence, Ohio, averaged 11.4 points and 9.2 rebounds at Tennessee, helping the Vols win the 1967 Southeastern Conference title. And though excellent passers like Luc Longley, Brad Miller and Joakim Noah have tossed the pill around with ease through their Chicago careers, Boerwinkle remains the gold standard when it comes to finding the open man in an offense that isn’t tailored to meet the needs of the big man that can score and defend. The former Chicago Bulls center had been suffering from a rare form of leukemia for over a decade, and he succumbed to the illness at age 67. "When you meet a guy like him and have him as a teammate, he becomes a brother to you, and there's no replacing someone like that.